Drea de Matteo

Drea de Matteo, born Andrea Donna de Matteo on January 19, 1972, is an Emmy-winning American actress, podcaster and OnlyFans creator best known for playing Adriana La Cerva on HBO’s The Sopranos. She was born in Queens, New York, to Donna de Matteo, a playwright and faculty member at HB Studio, and Albert de Matteo, a furniture manufacturer who served as CEO of Avery Boardman and Carlyle. Italian-American and raised Catholic, she is one of the few network-television leads of her generation to build a second act as a subscription creator.

Who Is Drea de Matteo?

De Matteo graduated from the Loyola School in Manhattan and earned a BFA in film production from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, originally intending to work behind the camera as a director. Acting took over instead. Between 1997 and 2004 she also co-owned Filth Mart, a vintage clothing store in New York City, running the shop while her screen career accelerated.

Her New York roots have shaped much of her public story. In March 2015 she lost the East Village apartment she had lived in for 22 years in the gas explosion that destroyed several buildings on Second Avenue.

Drea de Matteo’s Acting Career

De Matteo played Adriana La Cerva across the run of The Sopranos from 1999 to 2006, winning the 2004 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series and earning a Golden Globe nomination for the role. She followed it with a run of substantial television parts: Gina Tribbiani on Joey from 2004 to 2006, Wendy Case on Sons of Anarchy from 2008 to 2014, Angie Bolen on Desperate Housewives from 2009 to 2010, and Detective Tess Nazario on Shades of Blue from 2016 to 2018.

Her film credits include Swordfish, Deuces Wild, ‘R Xmas, Prey for Rock & Roll, the 2005 remake of Assault on Precinct 13, and Dark Places in 2015.

Drea de Matteo’s OnlyFans Career

De Matteo announced an OnlyFans account in September 2022, and the page went live in July and August of 2023 at $15 per month. She has been direct about the reason: after declining the COVID-19 vaccine, she said the decision cost her acting work and left her days away from foreclosure on her home. She told ABC News that OnlyFans saved her from financial ruin.

The account has since become a central part of her public identity rather than a footnote. In 2026 she told People that she had done her first nude shoot for the platform at the age of 54. She has repeatedly framed the platform as a form of autonomy after decades of working inside studio and network structures.

Drea de Matteo’s Podcast and Other Ventures

De Matteo co-hosts Gangster Goddess Broad-Cast, a Sopranos rewatch podcast originally titled Made Women, with Chris Kushner. She also runs the ULTRAFREE brand. Politically outspoken, she endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and later Donald Trump during the 2024 election cycle. She has two children with musician Shooter Jennings, her partner from 2001 until around 2020.

Drea de Matteo’s Social Media Presence

De Matteo has roughly 557,000 Instagram followers and maintains active accounts on X and OnlyFans. Her feeds combine family and New York content, podcast promotion, political commentary and direct links to her subscription page. Compared with creators who built audiences on social platforms first, her following is modest in raw numbers but unusually engaged, drawn largely from two decades of prestige-television work.

Drea de Matteo FAQ